How to get double front doors to close tight

Mike, you can place a nail set in that hinge and close the door real easy and it will spring that hing out and close the gap. Don't close the door completely, when you feel resistance gently push the door to spring the hinge, if it wasn't enough do it again. You may have to spring the center hinge also. Be careful not to put so much pressure on the hinge that it pulls the screws out.

One thing you need to know also, when bending the top hinge out it will also make the bottom of the door to drop slightly on the latch side of the door. It also will move the barrel (latch) down a little.

This does work, I have done it several times where there wasn't an adjustable hinge.

Another thing you can do to the hinge, if the doors are too close together you can take an open end wrench, I think it is 1/2 inch or maybe a 7/16 inch. place the wrench over the tab on the hinge that is installed on the door, not the jamb, bend the tab toward the door on all the tabs, this will close the hinge and open the gap on the door. Don't over bend the hinge as it will make it hinge bound.

Just know when you close the hinge up you are raising the top, knob side of the door at the top slightly, and if too much will cause the top of the door to drag on the jamb. Some folks aren't going to like this but, it does work.

How to get double front doors to close tight

One thing I forgot to mention is that in my first set of pictures, where the doors meet and I've circled it in red at the top... the door with the handle is not even with the other door and protrudes out about a quarter of an inch, it is not flush with the other door. I can push with my hand and it will be flush, but won't stay that way, just springs back out.

I've never delt with doors before...much less a hinge on the door. I don't know the terminology such as "casing legs", "jamb" ect. I'll have to google this stuff, as I'm a visual person. Builder seems content to ignore our concerns. Was hoping we could fix this problem ourselves.

Thank you all for taking time out to explain what the problem might be and how we could fix this. Oh'Mike and BigJim, please let me know what your final opinion might be.

I'm going to try one more time to contact the builder and I'll take some of ya'lls expertise and share it with him.

How to get double front doors to close tight

Ummm, this is a fiberglass door and I didn't think they warped? But, we used a 24 in level and put it on the top of the door to see if it was level. Yep, probably not what we were suppose to do, but we are somewhat clueless.
I started taking more pictures because of what was being said, and then noticed that on the hinged side of the door we open all the time, a difference in the gap from bottom to top. I have circled in red with arrows the difference I see in the opening between hinges. Maybe that's the problem?

Gosh, I can't thank you all enough for taking the time to respond to our dilemma. We just got 10 inches of snow in North Little Rock, AR...so fixing this door is very important..especially when it comes time to pay our heating bill.

How to get double front doors to close tight

Let me surmise by saying we chose a builder in Arkansas we thought could build us a handicap accessible home. We have a son who at 31 yrs of age is a paraplegic from a car accident he had when he was 21 yrs of age. We re-located from Missouri to Arkansas last year. My husband is retired military and accepted a position at Camp Robinson as a military instructor.

We were told that Jack (who built our home) had been on the ABC show called extreme makeover and was one of the builders who helped construct a home for a handicap child. We didn't have a lot of time to interview and choose a builder. This is going to be our forever home.

We paid a big chunk of change to have a custom built home. We used stained concrete floors throughout to make it more accessible for my son's electric wheelchair. My son does not live with us, but because of on-going medical issues with his spinal injury, we wanted to be prepared should he need to move in with us. We needed the double doors because of the width it would provide for my son and his electric wheelchair.

With that said, we noticed many flaws in our house, but Jack seemed more interested in his profit margin then appeasing our concerns. I think the solution with the door was a band-aid solution. I came here to read the article I posted in and thought we could fix this ourselves.

We are very new at DIY projects. If this is something we shouldn't do ourselves and need to let the professionals fix, then my question would be, what do we tell the builder so he can send someone out to fix the problem correctly. So far, he has ignored our emails. We just want a door that shuts correctly without hearing the wind whistle through the top portion of the middle when the doors are shut. That rubber thing they put in the top part of the door, not sure if that's really the problem. The door shuts the same way without it..meaning, I think it's just putting a wedge in-between the gap in the middle of the two doors. I could feel air come through before it was stuck in there by a handy man. I can still feel the air with it in. I'm bummed.....

How to get double front doors to close tight

Those doors are attached to a wood frame---a jamb or casing---the upright parts are legs---the hinges are attached to the 'legs'

If the legs are parallel ---your double doors will close properly---if one leans in and the other does not---the doors won;t meet in the middle correctly.

Play with those cards and duplicate the gap and I believe you will understand---

Now--take your level---see if the left 'leg' has exactly the same reading as the right 'leg'

If not you must move the 'legs' in or out---or recut the hinges to give you the same effect.

Double doors are the most difficult and unforgiving type of door to install---even experienced door installers dread them---much time and care is required---it's the 'old guys' who have installed many that get called in to fix these---Mike (old guy)

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How to get double front doors to close tight

Often the weight of the door pulls out the top hinge screws--or even pulls the jamb in at the top--

Long screws are often used to pull the upper hinge back where it belongs---2 1/2" 0r 3" --these are long enough to grab the 2x4 framing behind the jamb---transferring the weight of the door to the house framong---much stronger than the doors wood jambs---

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How to get double front doors to close tight

Quote:

Originally Posted by oh'mike

Often the weight of the door pulls out the top hinge screws--or even pulls the jamb in at the top--

Long screws are often used to pull the upper hinge back where it belongs---2 1/2" 0r 3" --these are long enough to grab the 2x4 framing behind the jamb---transferring the weight of the door to the house framong---much stronger than the doors wood jambs---

+1

This can fix about 30-40% of the door problems that we see.

The issue on most installs is that they did not properly shim behind the jambs to the framing so this gradual pulling over time throws the door out of shape. Even when it is squared and leveled back up, the door jamb is out of shape from having sagged for so long.

It is definitely one of those situations where an ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure.